Pastor's Statement of Faith

I believe that God is a promising God.

      Scripture reveals God’s promise across the ages. 

      Through the Old and the New Testaments, God has spoken, and God’s promise is assured.

I believe in God, who is unconditional, unfathomable, unseeable, and beyond measure.

      God is One: eternal, uncreated glory.

      God is Three: Mystery, Wisdom, Life.

As Infinite Mystery, God is the Creator of all things.

      Before all things, God! After all things, God!

      God has no beginning, no end. God is infinite, unsurpassable Mystery.

I believe in Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God.

      In Jesus of Nazareth, Wisdom unveils Mystery.

      Through him, the unfathomable becomes knowable and the unseeable tangible.

      Christ is truly God, truly creature.

            He truly shares in the infinitude of divinity. All that Mystery is, Wisdom is.

            He truly shares in the finitude of creatureliness. All that finitude is, Jesus is.

God creates all things through love, for God is love.

      Beings are created free to love—to love Creator and creation alike.

            But, by nature, created beings can not love perfectly as God loves.

                  Sin corrupts desire, in which created beings turn their love toward the wrong ends.

                  Envy, idolatry, pride—these are the many names of misdirected desire.

Mystery sends Wisdom into the world to reconcile creatures lost by misdirected desire.

      As the personification of Wisdom, Christ reconciles the world through the work of his flesh

            —teaching, preaching, healing, giving himself fully even unto death, and rising anew—

            Wisdom reorders a disordered cosmos and conjoins all things to the Creator in love.

      Sharing in the essence of divinity, Wisdom is God’s Son by nature.

            As the heir proper, all that belongs to God also belongs to the Son.

      Through the work of his flesh, Christ shares his blessings with created beings as a gift.

            Creatures become adopted heirs of the Creator and share in Wisdom through grace.

      In gifted Wisdom, creatures learn to know God and love as God loves.

            In faith itself, Wisdom is present. Where there is faith, Christ shares his Wisdom.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Life-Giver. 

      The Spirit is the agent of life and the wellspring of hope.

            Through word and sacrament, the Spirit declares and depicts God’s promise.

      The Spirit is the lifeblood of the community of faith, the church, which is the body of Christ.

            The Spirit calls, awakens, equips, and moves the body to act in accordance with Wisdom.

            Emboldened by the Spirit, the church sets out on the march toward the promised land.

      In faith, the Spirit of Life and Wisdom of God communicate Mystery to the church.